Brief Background – Provide a quick overview of the issue that your recommendation is addressing so that your boss (I mean Santa) knows what you’re covering.

Recommendation – Clearly & succinctly state what you think should be done.

Rationale – List the reasons that support why the thing that you think should happen should happen.

Next Actions – If the recommendation’s accepted, list out the next things that have to take place.

Let’s apply the approach (sans the headers that you’d use in a business memo) to our holiday letter:

Dear Santa,

I just wanted to update you on what a good boy I’ve been this year and suggest a gift that would truly be appreciated.

This Christmas, I recommend that you bring me a new tablet computer.

This gift is warranted because I’ve really tried to help my wife more around the house this year, including yard work (which I really don’t like). The tablet computer would allow me the flexibility to work on this blog while away from home, to stay in contact with friends and loved ones, to get work done on airplanes more easily, and to draw cartoons for my presentations.

If you agree that a tablet computer makes sense as a gift, please deliver it on the evening of December 24 in Hays, KS, where we’ll be celebrating Christmas with my family. Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,Mike

So there you have it kids. In fewer than a dozen lines, we’ve made our recommendation and laid out the best case. Try it with Santa AND try it at the office. It really works in cutting through the clutter and getting to decisions faster.

Btw – if you’re still doing holiday shopping, Amazon lists copies of the “P&G 99” for $1.89. That’s less than 2 cents per principle or practice – you won’t find a cheaper gift that will so dramatically improve your staff’s performance this coming year! Order now!!!

[…] Don’t just type up the notes – add value through summarization, structure, conclusions, and recommendations. When someone approaches note taking and follow-up as an administrative task, the report out is typically chronological, with the notes coming back word-for-word, space-for-space as they were recorded at the meeting. When approaching a recap strategically, however, it provides the opportunity to move beyond a chronological playback. Instead, you can group notes based on similar themes, organize them with a logic flow that a live meeting doesn’t allow, fill-in information gaps, form conclusions, and even begin to suggest recommendations. […]